B&B: The heart, mind, and soul of a woman – Part 1

You won’t believe this, but I am here to SING the praises of BnB writers! I know, right?!!?! How often has that happened? I’ve been convinced, for EONS, that BnB writers fall into one of three categories: 1 – men who’ve never been in a relationship with a woman. 2 – men who have been in relationships with women, and hate them. 3 – women who haven’t had the heart to tell their coworkers that they’re putting utter bullshit to screen. Yes, harsh, I know, but as a fan who’s watched the show from the day it aired, I’ve been one bitterly disappointed fan for roughly the last decade (though don’t ask me to explain why I continued to watch). The tipping point? I stopped watching after Brooke “accidentally” had sex with her youngest daughter’s boyfriend, after all of her earlier trouble. She had no idea that the person she had sex with wasn’t her husband – a man she’d been having sex with since her early 20s. There is suspension of disbelief, and then there is flirtation with insanity. There have been far too many times when BnB writers have asked viewers for the latter instead of the former.

So how did the same writing team move from the “mistaken stand up sex with a 20-year-old” to the Katie-Bill phenomenon? It beats the hell out of me because like my continued fascination with this show, I can’t explain that either. For the past two years, the BnB has won Emmys for “Best Writing” in storylines featuring the Logan family, in part or whole. I can only believe that the writers are ready to explore the Logan women with greater depth and insight are and are beginning to play off of the strengths of the Logan leads (Katherine Kelly Lang, Heather Thom, Jennifer Gareis). Between Brooke giving Ridge and Taylor the blues over their nitwit overly self-involved daughter, to Katie reading $Bill the riot act and busting him down to ¢Bill, this show is ROCKING! The writers are finally writing as if they understand the hearts, minds, and souls of women. I’ve finally watched a series of episodes that I could recommend to ANYONE I know, even friends who aren’t soap fans, and not be embarrassed to admit that I watch daytime television. If it’s possible for the soap genre to be redefined at this late stage, as soaps lay dying, The Bold and The Beautiful has done it!

Katherine Kelly Lang – Brooke Logan

KKL’s strength has always been treating Brooke as a character with a heart and a soul, although her job was made a bit tougher during some of Brooke’s worst moments (sleeping with daughter Bridget’s husbands – Deacon and Nick, thinking of her daughter’s believed abortion to be a ‘moment’ in history for her to move on with Bridget’s beloved, accidentally sleeping with teen daughter Hope’s boyfriend). If you erase those three horrific moments, Brooke has been the emotional heart of the show. She brings love and forgiveness. She brings insight and wisdom. Unlike most BnB soap characters, Brooke admits her faults and lays herself emotionally bare to be judged by others. She suffers humiliation and maltreatment and continues to move forward. What she’s rarely been allowed to be, however, is the matriarch she is, a woman with a voice. This new Brooke would have made Beth Logan proud!

Brooke telling the parents of a snake like Steffy that she SHOULD have her heart-broken if she thinks that it’s ok to interfere in someone else’s marriage was positively inspired! While Brooke has been reamed as a hypocrite in some quarters, I see her as a woman who is sadly speaking from experience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t view Steffy and Brooke as the same, at all. The difference is that Brooke had always been fighting to reclaim the love that was lost as Stephanie and Taylor fought to keep her and Ridge apart. Steffy developed a crush on an older man and decided that he belonged to her – his wife be damned. Steffy barely knew Bill. There was no history, there was no backstory, there was only a pathetic attempt by a little girl to use a man to hurt a woman she’s hated without reason or limit. Brooke nailed Taylor right between the eyes by reminding her that any other woman in her daughter’s shoes would have been deemed a home wrecker or worse (remember Taylor referring to Brooke as winning one for the ‘whores of the world’, when Ridge left her for Brooke, even though Brooke didn’t want him?

I don’t know if the writers remember that it was their decision to transform Taylor from sympathetic oncologist, to husband envying psychiatrist, in love with her dying patients’ grieving spouse. Either way, they’ve continued to write Brooke as the woman with insight, who has been consistently able to call other characters out on their behaviors, motivations, and intentions. Taylor is stuck defending or minimizing the behaviors her daughter displays when she learns the Brooke despises those very behaviors, even when she herself initially disagrees with Steffy’s actions. It’s Taylor who has missed the boat on some of the biggest behavior indicators of problems in the Forresters’ lives (like Amber’s skittishness when bringing faux Little Eric home, and Morgan Dewitt’s psychological instability, or children’s growing pathological behaviors which includes a car bombing and stalking).

I am so greatly enjoying Brooke finding her voice and defending her family that I can scarcely wait for the next scene!

One thought on “B&B: The heart, mind, and soul of a woman – Part 1”

North…as always you ROCK! I just love your assessment of Brooke. Brooke for all her flaws is such a natural, loving, caring, protective character…so much different than Taylor. I love this strong Brooke. I love that she didn’t back down from Ridge and let both he and Taylor know that they should have said “no” a long time to their spoiled, selfish, entitled, brat of a daughter. Brooke was so right on point when she reminded Taylor that if it had been anyone other than her daughter she’d been calling her a homewreaker. And God forbid if it had been Hope, she’d been saying that Hope has no morals because of Brooke.